Questions are being belatedly asked — and grudgingly answered — about many aspects of Merkel’s failed Russia policy, including her decisions to block Ukraine’s prospective membership of NATO, gut the German military, undermine the transatlantic alliance, and institutionalize Germany’s overdependence on Russian energy supplies. The responsibility for Germany’s failed Russia …

As a regular conflict, the ongoing Ukraine war is being fought with kinetic weapons and traditional power projection platforms in conventional operational battlefields. However, its span transcends the domain of military statecraft. It goes much further. In fact, this unfolding confrontation must also be understood as a major clash in …

How did the political crisis escalate? The Pakistani parliament voted no confidence in Prime Minister Imran Khan in the early hours of 10 April, in a culmination of tensions that had been building for some time. Khan’s main opponents, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and Bilawal …

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait invited Iran on Wednesday to hold negotiations to determine the eastern limit of a joint, energy-rich, offshore area, the Saudi state-news agency SPA reported. The two Gulf Arab monarchies reaffirmed their right to develop the Durra natural gas field, located in this area, the Saudi Press …

Since its 2019 defeat, ISIL has morphed into a series of affiliates taking hold in Afghanistan and Africa’s Sahel belt. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) has changed form several times over the years. With its origins in the aftermath of the US invasion of …

An OPEC decision on using oil related data indicate further development in ties between Saudi Arabia and U.S. A Reuters report said: ‘A decision driven by Saudi Arabia that OPEC+ should stop using oil data from the West’s energy watchdog reflected concern about U.S. influence on the figures, sources close …

As the United States, the UK and other NATO powers surge weapons into Ukraine, the NATO alliance is being transformed into a fighting force capable of directly waging wars with Russia and China. Using the war between Russia and Ukraine as a pretext, NATO has already mobilized its 40,000-strong rapid …

Iran’s future should not be dependent on the success or failure of negotiations to revive the nuclear agreement with the world powers, the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told senior officials on Tuesday, according to state television. Khamenei said that the negotiations, reported to be stalled for the last …

Are Democracies Really United Against Russia? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked outrage and unleashed a barrage of economic sanctions from many Western governments. Some, such as Germany, have boosted their military spending after years of riding on American coattails. In these actions, certain analysts have found a silver lining …

How Repression at Home Presaged Belligerence Abroad Before he started massing troops, few expected Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, and even once he did, few expected him to behave the way he has. In a shocking act of aggression, the Russian leader sent troops to bomb cities such as Kharkiv …